A decade ago, in the Dardenne brothers' terrific Rosetta, a young woman wondered if her life was worth anything if she wasn't working. In the brothers' new film, Lorna's Silence, the slightly older Lorna (Arta Dobroshi) wonders if the life of her junkie husband-for-hire Claudy (Dardenne fixture Jérémie Renier) is all that important. An epic nuisance when not just a bad roommate, Claude married Lorna, an Albanian, so she could acquire Belgian citizenship. In return, she agrees to marry a Russian in an identical scheme. Her contact Fabio (Fabrizio Rongione) plans to bypass a messy divorce by simply killing Claudy with an overdose, something Lorna views ambivalently at first.

Unlike their last three films, the Dardennes have removed themselves from much of the action with their latest work. Their camera, wielded once again by their regular cinematographer Alain Marcoen, often proves unable to concentrate on anything but their main character, but here, it feels as if focus is drifting, taking in the city of Liège with a wider scope.

There's a similar wideness to the story and the screenplay. Written by the directors, the script makes the character of Lorna inescapably bound to Fabio's scheme, taking focus for the first time away from the central character and towards a very vague sense of narrative structure. Just as Claudy cleans up and begins to win back some of Lorna's affections, he is found overdosed, leaving Lorna with their baby in her womb. Thematically, this makes sense: A metaphysical comeuppance for being flippant about a human life. But in terms of story, it feels uneven and slightly unearned, once again taking focus away from Lorna and putting it on her unborn child.

As the Dardennes recently remarked, all of their films involve the concept of human life being priceless and the trials their characters have to face to understand that. What has been muddied but not lost in Lorna's Silence is the clarity and singular nature of the Dardennes' oeuvre up till now. In their last film, L'Enfant, a young man faced obstacles both moral and physical in attempting to retrieve his baby, which he'd recently sold. The cause and effect of Lorna's tribulations are not nearly as clearly defined, and it slows the Dardennes' otherwise kinetic style.

Since 1996's La Promesse, the Dardennes have proven incapable of make anything but masterpieces; Lorna's Silence is the first one that is simply very good. Is this reason for revolt or backlash? I don't think so. The film remains very entertaining, is smartly edited, and features, as always with the Belgian diptych's work, a natural, energetic and intelligent central performance, this time from lovely newcomer Dobroshi, whom the brothers found in Sarajevo after an exhaustive search that reached Macedonia and Kosovo.

Amongst other things, Lorna's feels like a summation of their work so far -- Dardenne staple Olivier Gourmet shows up in a cameo and Morgan Marinne from Le Fils plays Fabio's assistant. The film doubles as a reaction to their recent influence peak in America (see: The Wrestler, Ballast, the upcoming Big Fan) and there is just a hint of stateside structure and composition in Lorna's. Rather than remake their own work or taking on a studio project, the Dardennes have seemingly confronted their Western recognition on their own, unique terms.

Aka Le silence de Lorna.



It's oh so quiet.